Export Your Smash Bros. Ultimate Replays Quickly, They're Getting Wiped Next Week

It’s nice they’re warning us this time. I lost some amazing replays in Smash 4 due to unexpected updates. I’m also glad you’re able to trim your replays now. I hated watching a three minute match in its entirety just to see a single great finish.

Stability? Maybe?

I’m just happy to have unlocked all the characters and completed WOL (25hours and another 5 for Pauline).

I haven’t got round to replaying anything yet! Thanks for the warning tho!

What a mess.

@Bunkerneath
More likely balancing and data structure preparations for the first of the DLC fighters.

Replay: “Magic Emperor? I don’t feel so good...”

Wish Smash had the Switch’s easy-to-use video capture feature instead of relying on easily lost replays.

So they make a big deal about the Day 1 update being necessary to keep the saved replays from being wiped, then they wipe them all anyway? Not nice Ntinedo, coal in the stocking for you.

"The news comes from a recent Famitsu column by Sakurai himself; we don't know if there are more changes involved under the hood, but Sakurai notes that the patch will at least ensure any saved replays work as intended.

“We will distribute our first update on launch day. Players who purchased the digital version don’t need to worry, but players who purchased the physical version should apply this day-one patch before you play. This will also prevent your replays from going off-track. By the way, if you save your replays as videos, you can keep them forever, but note that they take up a lot of space!”

https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/11/super_smash_bros_ultimate_will_have_a_day-one_update_but_only_for_those_who_buy_physical

@roadrunner343 @gcunit You two still sure Smash is gonna play w/o the patch? This entire article was written giving the game a pass. They didn't even reference their own previous article on the topic. Smash, all is forgiven.

@rjejr I think you are misreading my dude. The day one patch was due to the fact that replays weren't replaying properly, not because they were being wiped. Like going back and watching them was janky presumably because it only saves the button inputs and not actual video. Which is why Sakurai recommended converting anything you want to keep into a video.

Whew I'm glad I can convert replays into video files now, I had a pretty cool online battle that I saved a replay off and it would be a real shame to lose it this soon.

I can't believe that the game doesn't support video capture.

I saw this message pop up. I got in a few online matches and I definitely want to save those.

I seem to remember that they said that replays would be usable even after updates?

Real frustrating, really.

@Indielink "Sakurai recommended converting anything you want to keep into a video."

"By the way, if you save your replays as videos, you can keep them forever, but note that they take up a lot of space!”

Sounds less like a recommendation, more like a warning. He basically says it's gonna hurt.

And why have a DAy 1 patch to make replays playable if you are just going to wipe them all just 4 days later anyway. Maybe, I don't know, they should have put this patch out first THEN put out the other patch making the ones that dont' get wiped playable.

Remember this quote - "A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever." Maye they should have released this one next Friday instead of last Friday.

@LegendOfPokemon I agree, but it seems Nintendo are thinking about us Switch owners & our tiny inbuilt memory. A replay will only take a few bits, video capture could take a few megs or gigs depend8ng on length.

@rjejr Not really sure what this has to do with being playable off the cart - but yes, I am fairly certain the game will continue to work just fine on an unpatched system.

Another thing to note, it's extremely common for replays to become unplayable after game updates, since they rely on the game engine to be rendered. It's not a Smash exclusive problem.

That said, no, I don't think they should get a free pass. The timing is certainly poor, especially after the day 1 patch. That, combined with my online experience thus far, and just a so-so adventure mode (My opinion, don't hate me) and there's still a lot of room for improvement. The problem is... Smash is still just so darn fun in local multiplayer that it's hard for me to care THAT much. Relatively minor gripes aside, it's the must fun I've had in gaming this year, so that has to count for something.

Switch without Snapping Button. It can be use my Xbox One HDMI-IN to One Guide and stream my PC.

Well too bad, I don't have smash.

@roadrunner343 Still waiting for Santa to bring ours. Hopefully not too many more updates between now and then I'll need to install for MY day 1. I wonder if the game will be smart enough to do all the updates at once or I'll need to boot up the game, install update, boot up the game again, install new update. God of War no joke had 10 updates the first 10 days, every night I turned it on I had to update. And it won GotY, so Smash has that going for it next year.

Life is too short, and there are too many games in my backlog, for me to watch replays of my gameplay in any game.

That's soon! I fear this game will be a memory-muncher (even more so when we add Piranha plant, or if you ad the other dlc).

My point: Updates and dlc will eat up my micro-sd soon. Luckily I have a 128 gb card. When I am out of room, I might erase some games and redownload them on a new card. I just hope they won't do to many updates, but I know they will...

Good thing I'm streaming all my clips for my upcoming montages so they save on my YT channel.

@rjejr Even if they waited and rolled patch 1.1 and 1.2 into one big patch, the patch AFTER that would STILL delete replays due to the method used to save them and we would have had a broken feature for the first four days of Nintendo's biggest launch of the year.

Part of me wonders if it contains fixes for the matchmaking and netcode considering the all the complaints I have seen

@Indielink Well then rather than have Sakurai say "not to worry" they should have had him say - dont' save any replays the first 4 days as they'll all be wiped due to updates.

As I pointed out in that earlier article, though perhaps not clearly, I ALWAYS worry when somebody says "don't need to worry" b/c if I didn't need to worry then they wouldn't have to say I don't need to worry. People only ever say "no need to worry" when there IS a need to worry. That's just how it works.

And after years of reading Nintnedo fanbois trot that Miyamoto comment out about how great Ntinedo is b/c they only release games when they are done, well nobody brings that comment up anymore now do they? When MS and Sony games needed a patch those games were broken, Nintneod game needs a patch and it's a bonus feature. Fanbois give me a headache.

@rjejr Replays will be broken frequently until the final patch for the game when Smash 6 is announced. That's just now in-engine replays go. Replays aren't videos, they're perfect captures of button sequences played back. If a patch changes damage values, jump heights, character weights, attack speeds, hitboxes, etc, etc, the replay would be completely broken because the same effect doesn't happen with the same button push anymore. every patch forever will break replays, because that's how FG replays work That's why you can save them to video and copy them to PC

That first patch came out quickly. It's very nice a warning is issued, so people can save their replays.

As for replays that rely on the game engine, it would take up memory somewhere, but any program can be designed to store old code, when new code comes, so that the replays that rely on the game engine can still work. Of course, depending on the archive code's eventual size, this may not be deemed a necessary feature by the programmers.

Also, think back to pre-patchable gaming. For example: Super Street Fighter 2: Turbo, a well-known retro fighting game, was forever the way it was. Character balance, glitches, etc. was permanently the way it came from Capcom, and Nintendo. So, the co.s actually had to guarantee that the game was playable. If x character, or a certain stage had a certain advantage, then "oh well".

@subpopz I'd rather the fanbois not be so blatantly hypocritical that when a Ubisoft game requires a patch or update they berate how horrible Ubi is but when Ntinedo does it it's the right thing to do. It's either right for everyone or wrong for everyone, Nintnedo fans have been trying to have it both ways forever and they really need to stop.

@NEStalgia Why have them then? Just save them to video and call it a day.

I totally forgot that replays were a thing.

Can anybody guesstimate just how large this patch will be? Will I basically be redownloading the game?

@rjejr you may be waiting for Santa, I feel like I'm waiting for Satan, lol. I just want to play! It's a conspiracy I tell you. I pre-ordered this game and I have been hyped for it since the end of November. I couldn't pick it up in time because I've been totally slammed with long nights in the office. Best Buy refunded my pre-order and I have since discovered that my wife fixed the problem by going and buying it. But now it's a Christmas present so I can't touch it. 😣

@Frontiersmann I think I saw that in an episode of The Office.

Hang in there, on the bright side all of the patching may be done by then, and Piranha plant will be that much closer to coming out. Most people have just spent the weekend trying to unlock everybody anyway, maybe Nintneod will read all the frustration and put in a patch that let's us unlock everybody just by clicking on an option. Though Id' settle for unlocking a character by scanning my amiibo, I spent a lot of money on a lot of amiibo, would be a nice bonus for people who bought them. Maybe just for people who have save data on them from the Wii U or 3DS versions of Smash, that would work. Or even just those leveled up to 50. I read they reset the level 50 amiibo back to level 12, if they are going to do that at least unlock them for us.

So yeah, I'm just going to spend the next 2 weeks hoping and complaining per usual.

@Pod 10 times easier than the replay system on League of Legends

@rjejr Because it's a way to (temporarily) store a lot of recordings to check, learn from, entertain with/edit without requiring streaming to a huge local video storage server or something. You can record your 30 hours of gameplay, without eating tons of storage, then pull the parts you need to keep and convert to video. But you do have to do it before balancing patches. Every balance patch breaks those videos because the engine behaves differently per button press. If they change damge +.2% on Pikachus down special, and you play back a recording, the opponent would launch to ko in the replay before it actually happened in the original play...it would be completely fake. Smash isn't the only fighter to use that system, it's pretty common for the genre.

Can someone explain to me why the replays will be deleted with this new patch?

I do hope this update gives us the ability to record the last 30 seconds thing, since we can't do replays for everything.

@rjejr What was all that about? If you save it as a video you can still keep the replays... and of course if a balance patch comes through then replays would not work.. but you still have the videos so no problem ... this would probably happen every time a big update comes through..

Save them as videos as described.. problem
solved?

@Bliquid There's a check next to ones you have, and a 'clear' on the overview screen if you select one

@Jeaz Thanks for the explanation. One good thing about reading the comments on NL is getting better explanations than in the articles themselves. And certainly better than Nintnedo. Though I try to give them the benefit of the "lost in translation" doubt.

@NEStalgia Even more reason for me not to play fighters. On the bright side, when my kids kick my butt I'll know it will get deleted sooner or later.

@rjejr Surprisingly little gets lost in translation when it's not translation of subtle things like humor that, especially with Japan really doesn't cross over in either direction too well. I love Japanese humor, but you can't really translate it...most of it doesn't work outside the language. It's like British comedy that most Americans seem not to get...it all involves clever wordplay....but for Japanese, the wordplay doesn't directly translate, so it makes so sense. Most of the "lost in translation" is "lost from the C suite to the PR statement."

LOL, well you can export to video if you want to keep the blackmail memories forever.

I still don't get why the game can't just revert to a specific patch when replaying older replays. Guess it just isn't convenient enough.

@Wolfenpilot687 Optimization. Every additional set of logic, rules, and potentially resource data means more CPU, more memory, more storage in use. Nintendo's magic is optimizing every last unnecessary process out of the game so the hardware has not a single wasted cycle. That's how they perform miracles on their own hardware.

@JamesJose7
Never played that game, so I take your word for it.

@Pod <3

So are they gonna wipe it every other update? Wtf is the point of replays then?